Granite is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
with a
U.S. Post Office
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal serv ...
in
Chaffee County, Colorado
Chaffee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 19,476. The county seat is Salida, Colorado, Salida.
History
Chaffee County has a confusing origin. Between ...
, United States. The zip code of Granite is 81228.
According to the 2010 census, the population is 116.
Situated between the
Mosquito
Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...
and the
Sawatch mountain ranges, Granite is a
high mountain town located on the
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically ...
midway between
Leadville
Leadville ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory city, statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, Lak ...
to the north, and
Buena Vista to the south. It is in close proximity to the second and third highest peaks in the
contiguous United States
The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The te ...
,
Mount Elbert
Mount Elbert is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America. With an elevation of , it is also the highest point in the U.S. state of Colorado and the second-highest summit in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney, w ...
and
Mount Massive
Mount Massive (Arapaho: ''Hiwoxuu hookuhu'ee'') is the second-highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and the U.S. state of Colorado. It is located in the Mount Massive Wilderness of San Isabel National Forest, west-southwes ...
.
The town has a rich history from its days during the
Pike's Peak Gold Rush, when it began as a mining camp, holding the county seat. Early prospectors, such as
Horace Tabor
Horace Austin Warner "Haw" Tabor (November 26, 1830 – April 10, 1899), also known as The Bonanza King of Leadville and The Silver King, was an American prospector, businessman, and Republican politician. His success in Leadville, Colorado's si ...
, were attracted to the area.
Geography and climate

Granite is located midway between
Leadville
Leadville ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory city, statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, Lak ...
to the north, and
Buena Vista to the south. The
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically ...
, which once saw extensive
placer mining
Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit mining or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.
Placer mining is frequently used for precious metal deposits (particularly ...
during the
Colorado Gold Rush, runs through Granite. It is the sixth longest river in the US; the headwater is 17 miles north in the Leadville area. Granite is located between two mountain ranges:
Mosquito Range
The Mosquito Range (elevation approximately 14,000 ft) is a high mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The peaks of the range form a ridge running north–south for roughly 40 mi (64 km) fr ...
to the east and the
Sawatch Range
The Sawatch Range or Saguache RangeThe place name "Saguache” is pronounced “Sawatch” . This name derives from the Ute language noun "''sawup''" meaning "sand dunes" and is spelled using the Spanish language version of this name "Saguach ...
to the west, and it is within approximately 10 miles of two of the highest peaks in the
contiguous United States
The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The te ...
. To the northwest lies
Mount Elbert
Mount Elbert is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America. With an elevation of , it is also the highest point in the U.S. state of Colorado and the second-highest summit in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney, w ...
, the highest of the
fourteeners
In the mountaineering parlance of the Western United States, a fourteener (also spelled 14er) is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least . The 96 fourteeners in the United States are all west of the Mississippi River. Colorado has 53 four ...
in the Sawatch Range and second highest peak in the contiguous United States. Neighboring
Mount Massive
Mount Massive (Arapaho: ''Hiwoxuu hookuhu'ee'') is the second-highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and the U.S. state of Colorado. It is located in the Mount Massive Wilderness of San Isabel National Forest, west-southwes ...
is the third highest peak. Nearby
Independence Pass, at 12,100 feet (3,687 m), is the highest paved crossing of the
Continental Divide
A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...
in the United States. The elevation, 9,012 ft (2,747 m), brings cool summers and cold winters to the area. Winter temperatures frequently drop to -25 and -30 (USDA zone 4). Surrounded by moisture-robbing mountains, the climate is semiarid, though deep winter snows are common.
Early history
The
Pike's Peak Gold Rush that began in 1859 brought an unprecedented number of people into the
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the 38th State of Colorado.
The territory was organized ...
. Among the earliest gold discoveries in Colorado were
placer deposit
In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation from a specific source rock during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish language, Spanish word ''placer'', meaning "alluviu ...
s near the headwaters of the Arkansas River in
Oro city. In 1860, Cache Creek, a mining camp near Granite, became the first settlement of note with a population of about 300, which, by the following year exploded to a population of 3,000. Following the discovery of gold in Low Pass Gulch in 1867, the town of Granite, located on either side of the Arkansas river, attracted many of the miners who previously inhabited the town of Cache Creek. The settlement included a three-mile stretch of river and one mining claim extended two-miles up Cache Creek. In 1867 free quartz gold was discovered and a mill was built. In 1868 the
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
was moved to Granite from the neighboring town of Dayton near present-day
Twin Lakes, no longer in existence.
1874 and 1875 brought the "Lake County War", a war involving a group of men from the nearby town of
Nathrop known as "The Regulators", to Granite. The war reached its climax when members of the “Committee of Safety” killed Probate Judge Elias Dyer, the son of the well-known minister
John Lewis Dyer
John Lewis Dyer (1812-1901), "The Snowshoe Itinerant," was a circuit rider, that is, a preacher who rode from one church to the next. He was a Methodist.
Biography
Dyer was born in Franklin County, Ohio, spending most his early years in Illino ...
, in his own courtroom.
[http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/6025/junebio.htm](_blank)
The
vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice ...
committee had been trying to rid the county of "lawbreakers" using illegal arrests, coerced confessions and forced exile as tools in its campaign. No one was ever convicted of Judge Dyer's murder.
Murders were common, but convictions were not. More than one hundred homicides occurred during this period without a single conviction; it was almost impossible to get witnesses to swear to the killings.
The early prospectors included
Horace Tabor
Horace Austin Warner "Haw" Tabor (November 26, 1830 – April 10, 1899), also known as The Bonanza King of Leadville and The Silver King, was an American prospector, businessman, and Republican politician. His success in Leadville, Colorado's si ...
, who later moved up the valley to Leadville where he was to find his fortune in the
Colorado Silver Boom
The Colorado Silver Boom was a dramatic expansionist period of silver mining activity in the U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each st ...
that swept Leadville in 1879. In a much-publicized scandal Tabor divorced his wife and married young and beautiful
Elizabeth "Baby Doe" McCourt, twenty years his junior.
The Tabors had two children, Lily and Silver Dollar. They lost their wealth when the price of silver dropped in 1893 and Tabor died in 1899 with a final request of Baby Doe that she maintain the claim to their silver mine. Baby Doe lived in squalid conditions in the tool shed of the mine for thirty years and was found dead in 1936.

Until 1879 the village of Granite was located in
Lake County, once one of the two largest of the Colorado Territory’s original 17 counties. As the site of some of the richest
placer gold strikes in Lake County, Granite held the position of county seat, but in 1878 they lost out to booming silver-rich Leadville, 17 miles to the north. However, Granite did manage to remain the county seat, but not of Lake County. They redrew the county lines creating
Chaffee County, with Granite as the county seat. But a year later an election was held resulting in a win for Buena Vista, 17 miles to the south of Granite, with 1,128 votes out of a total population of 1,200 (when women couldn’t vote). Granite declared the election fraudulent and refused to give up its position, so late one night a group of men from Buena Vista took matters into their own hands.
Buena Vistans voted to make their town the county seat, but Granite refused to give up the records. So a group of men led by Ernest Wilbur "borrowed" a locomotive and flat car and went up to Granite late on the night of November 12, 1880. The men built a siding to the Granite Courthouse and kicked in the door.
Sheriff John Mear and his wife investigated the noise and were forced at gunpoint to watch the removal of all the county records by the Buena Vista men. Furniture was unbolted from the floor, including the railing. Even the heat stove, with embers remaining in it from the day's use, was loaded onto the flatcar. —Buena Vista Heritage Museum
Geology and mining

The upper Arkansas River valley, including the area around Granite, is hemmed in between high, sheer rock outcroppings of buff/pink-colored
Precambrian
The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...
granite
Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
. Granite lies at the center of the
Colorado Mineral Belt
The Colorado Mineral Belt (CMB) is an area of ore deposits from the La Plata Mountains in Southwestern Colorado to near the middle of the state at Boulder, Colorado, and from which over 25 million troy ounces (778 t) of gold were extracted begin ...
(CMB), a 50 mile-wide strip that runs north and south for 300 miles. Mineralization of the CMB came primarily by way of intrusions of
Tertiary Period
The Tertiary ( ) is an obsolete Period (geology), geologic period spanning 66 million to 2.6 or 1.8 million years ago. The period began with the extinction of the non-bird, avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at t ...
magmas. The primary ores of the CMB were generally deposited as mixed metal
sulfide mineral
The sulfide minerals are a class of minerals containing sulfide (S2−) or disulfide () as the major anion. Some sulfide minerals are economically important as metal ores. The sulfide class also includes the selenide mineral, selenides, the tell ...
veins containing
pyrite
The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral.
Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...
,
galena
Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver.
Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It crysta ...
,
sphalerite
Sphalerite is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula . It is the most important ore of zinc. Sphalerite is found in a variety of deposit types, but it is primarily in Sedimentary exhalative deposits, sedimentary exhalative, Carbonate-hoste ...
,
chalcopyrite
Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a Mohs scale, hardness of 3.5 to 4 ...
, and gold, silver, and copper. During the
last glacial period native gold was freed from the host rock and deposited along the ancient roaring Arkansas River bed - much larger than it is today due to the melting glacial runoff.
Unlike the early days of the
California Gold Rush
The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...
, very few large nuggets were ever found in the Colorado
diggings
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Gr ...
. A
gold pan
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
was adequate for finding "
pay dirt", but to produce more than a small amount of gold,
sluice
A sluice ( ) is a water channel containing a sluice gate, a type of lock to manage the water flow and water level. There are various types of sluice gates, including flap sluice gates and fan gates. Different depths are calculated when design s ...
boxes were built to separate the gold dust from the gravel. They were built on site from the material that was at hand and placed in the river current. The old sluice boxes were lined with raised obstructions that were placed in a vertical position to the flow of the current and when the gold-laden gravel was shoveled into the upper end of the sluice, the flow of water carried the material down the length of the box. The gravel was carried down the entire length of the sluice and then discharged, but the heavier flakes of gold settled and became trapped. Signs of placer mining up and down along the Arkansas river near Granite and the surrounding areas are in evidence by the many heaps of glacially rounded granite boulders, rocks that were once buried in the glacial gravel deposits.
[www.historycolorado.org](_blank)
/ref>
Among the earliest gold discoveries in the Colorado gold rush were placer deposits discovered in 1859 at the headwaters of the Arkansas River near Granite. By late 1860 most of the streams had been prospected, and numerous gold placers were reported along the Arkansas River to Buena Vista and beyond. The deposits along the Arkansas River and Cache Creek near Granite probably were the most productive, producing about 49,000 troy ounces
Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in the Kingdom of England in the 15th century and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 ...
of gold.[Colorado Earth Science: Cache Creek Park: A Chaffee County Gold Rush]
/ref>
In many Colorado mining districts the easily discovered and worked placers were the first big strikes of a typical gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
. But the free gold supply in stream beds quickly became depleted, and the initial phase was followed by prospecting for veins of lode gold that were the original source of the placer gold. The hills above Granite are pockmarked with numerous old mining tunnels from hard rock mining
Hard means something that is difficult to do. It may also refer to:
* Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture
* Hard water, water with high mineral content
Arts and entertainment
* ''Hard'' (TV series), a French T ...
, evidence of the typical second stage of a gold rush cycle. Their neighbors in Leadville went on to discover silver, resulting in a silver rush
A silver rush is the silver-mining equivalent of a gold rush, where the discovery of silver-bearing ore sparks a mass migration of individuals seeking wealth in the new mining region.
Notable silver rushes have taken place in Mexico, Chile, the U ...
, but Granite never got that far. In just a few years their ore began to play out, and the town's population, once as high as 7000, began to decline.
Stagecoach and railways
Leadville Stagecoach Road
The earliest mode of transportation used by the growing number of settlers in Granite and the surrounding area was horseback and pack mules or burro
The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...
s. The Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...
, built in 1822, had a north fork up to Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
(founded in 1858), and by 1877 the Leadville Stagecoach Road was running from Canyon City, through Granite, Leadville, and north to Denver. Reliable transportation was important to deliver supplies for the growing communities, and the route was used more as a supply and mail route than for transportation of passenger
An old schedule from 1880 with the stage stops from Canyon City to Leadville shows that the trip was 126 miles and took 26 (jarring) hours. The distance today is 120 miles, illustrating the fact that in these high mountains the routes for passage are very limited. However, with modern-day transportation the trip now takes only about two hours. The distance to Granite was 108 miles and the fare was $13.50 The Canyon City to Leadville stage ran three times daily.
Traces of the old stage road are still visible, as are the remains of bridges that once crossed the Arkansas River north of Buena Vista near the Colorado Midland Railway
The Colorado Midland Railway ,Railway Equipment and Publication CompanyThe Official Railway Equipment Register June 1917, p. 786 incorporated in 1883, was the first standard gauge railroad built over the Continental Divide in Colorado. It ran fr ...
tunnels, from east to west at Pine Creek (called "La Plata" in the photo at right), and a final crossing to the east side of the Arkansas just north of Clear Creek, about a mile south of Granite. At low water levels log supports of the rubble-filled abutments can still be seen at the Clear Creek crossing. The photo at right was taken as part of the , the first extensive geological survey of the West. La Plata creek, presently known as Pine Creek, is known to rafters as a dangerous rapids that have taken several lives.
The stage road was built ten to fifteen years before the railroads, and it is likely the heavily engineered rail routes overwhelmed the hand-built stage road. It is uncertain as to whether or not the stage road was abandoned as soon as the railroads reached Leadville, or if the route continued to be used by freight wagons and even early motor cars until better routes were available on the west side of the river where Highway 24 now runs. The stretch of old stage road that runs through Granite is surprisingly well-preserved and is used as a hiking/cycling trail.
Denver & Rio Grande West
In 1870 the Denver Pacific Railroad
The Denver Pacific Railway was a historic railroad that operated in the western United States during the late 19th century. Formed in 1867 in the Colorado Territory, the company operated lines in Colorado and present-day southeastern Wyoming in t ...
was built, providing Denver with rail transport to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Tracks were rapidly being laid in southern Colorado as the Denver & Rio Grande Western
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south fro ...
and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996.
The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at variou ...
fought for control of newly discovered mineral and coal deposits and ranching and farming areas. But the 1878 silver boom in Leadville changed everything, and by 1879 the rush for Leadville, 17 miles to the north of Granite, was on. With the boom, Leadville had rapidly become the third largest city in Colorado and the newly made millionaires had money and they wanted to spend it. Furthermore, they needed transport for their silver ore to the smelter
Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...
s in Denver or coal-rich southern Colorado, or a way to transport the coal from the southern coal mines to the upper Arkansas to fuel not only smelters, but blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
and machine shops, and assay
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity ...
offices as well. Without a local supply of coal they were using charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
as fuel, in fact, the charcoal industry in Leadville employed an estimated 3,000 people, three times the number of those working in the mines, and the forests were being rapidly depleted.
With the chance to control Leadville's newly discovered riches, both the D&RG and the Santa Fe set their sights on Leadville. They both rapidly laid track, but when they reached the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas (Royal Gorge) there was not room for both of them. Over a hundred years later the D&RG would comment (on their website):
"The Royal Gorge Route has, quite possibly, one of strangest histories of the entire Rio Grande system." The details of the "Royal Gorge War" can be read at the Royal Gorge Route Railroad
The Royal Gorge Route Railroad is a heritage railway, heritage railroad based in Cañon City, Colorado. A 1950s-era train makes daily 2-hour excursion runs from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Santa Fe train station, Depot through the R ...
Wikipedia article. After months of legal hassling, construction resumed and the D&RGW made it to Granite and reached Leadville on July 20, 1880. The line remained narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...
until 1888, when it became one of the first routes converted to dual gauge. In part this was done to handle the heavy freight coming out of Leadville, but primarily it was done to provide a standard gauge route west in order to compete effectively with the ever-expanding Colorado Midland.
Colorado Midland Railway
The Colorado Midland Railway
The Colorado Midland Railway ,Railway Equipment and Publication CompanyThe Official Railway Equipment Register June 1917, p. 786 incorporated in 1883, was the first standard gauge railroad built over the Continental Divide in Colorado. It ran fr ...
, incorporated in 1883, was the first standard gauge
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...
railroad built over the Continental Divide
A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...
in Colorado. It ran from Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous c ...
through Granite and Leadville, crossed the divide at Hagerman Pass, and went on to Aspen
Aspen is a common name for certain tree species in the Populus sect. Populus, of the ''Populus'' (poplar) genus.
Species
These species are called aspens:
* ''Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China, south of ''P. tremula'')
* ''Populus da ...
and Grand Junction. They had a more difficult time running their track because the routes that were the easiest places to lay rails had already been taken by the other railroads. The second problem was that the Colorado Midland was a standard gauge, so it needed more space to run the tracks. Curves were broader, bridges and tunnels had to be larger, and the total expense was considerably greater. A two-story depot existed in both Granite and Leadville and there was a roundhouse in Leadville as well.
Old photos dated March and April 1887 show crews laying track in Granite and records show that the railroad had reached Leadville in August, with passenger and freight service inaugurated the following day.
The CM served Leadville’s mines and smelters until 1906, with tracks in Iowa Gulch and California Gulch
The California Gulch site consists of approximately 18 square miles in Lake County, Colorado. The area includes the city of Leadville, parts of the Leadville Historic Mining District and a section of the Arkansas River from the confluence of Calif ...
, areas now termed the Leadville mining district. Service was discontinued in 1918 due to financial difficulties. The old Midland grade is still evident in Granite and sections of bridge can be seen about two miles south where the track crossed over to the west side of the river at Clear Creek. Evidence of the old bridge remains visible to hikers and four tunnels still exist farther south closer to Buena Vista.[00 Cover - Table of Contents.indd]
/ref>
Granite train wreck 1925
On August 20, 1925, there was a head-on collision between two passenger trains on the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad near Granite, which resulted in 2 deaths and the injury of 107. The wreck was found to be the result of human error and a blistering report followed:
"It would be difficult to imagine a more inherently dangerous system, or lack of system, for the operation of trains under the trains under icmethod of operation than that which appears to exist on this railroad. The disastrous results usually attendant upon careless handling of train orders are well illustrated in the present case, and the number and character of the violations of the rules, governing the handling of train orders raises a question as to whether the operating officials of this railroad have a proper appreciation of the responsibilities of their positions. While the immediate cause may be found to rest with the failure of some individual occupying a comparatively minor position, those responsible for the general conditions resulting in such failure occupy higher positions. They have the duty first to provide safe and adequate rules, for the operation of trains and then to enforce obedience to those rules, on the part of all concerned. This was not done in this ease, icand for their failure they are equally responsible for the occurrence of this accident."
Granite train wreck 1926
On September 5, 1926, speed was given as the cause of a disastrous single train wreck that occurred near Granite, Colorado. Shortly after the accident ''The Salida Mail'' reported: Twenty-eight people are known to be dead and one is known to be missing in the wreck of D. & R. G. W. passenger train No. 2, which occurred two miles west of Granite and eighteen miles east of Leadville shortly before noon Sunday. It is expected that when the coaches are lifted from the river other bodies will be found underneath. The task of identifying the dead is difficult because the deaths were all in the day coaches where no record of the names of passengers is kept.The wreck occurred on the first sharp curve entering the Granite district, where the railroad company is now changing the grade and spending a vast sum of money to eliminate the curve.
On October 8, 1926, the investigation concluded that the accident was caused by excessive speed: While conflicting in some details the best evidence indicates that train No. 2 approached the curve on which the accident occurred at a speed of approximately 40 or 45 miles per hour and that although Road Foreman of Equipment Lillis, who was operating the engine in the place of Engineman Harpending, made an application of the air brakes before the curve was reached, yet this application was not made soon enough to effect any appreciable reduction in speed before the curve was reached. The speed on this and all other sharp curves on this railroad is restricted to 30 miles per hour, and in view of the fact that an elevation of only 4 inches is provided for it is not considered that the prescribed limit can with reasonable safety be exceeded.
Ghost towns
While Granite is a ghost of what it once was, what with both a railroad and a major highway running through it has survived the years. However, many old ghost towns remain in the hills surrounding Granite. As the prospectors
Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis (followed by exploration) of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking.
Traditionally prospecting rel ...
searched for gold, every Arkansas River tributary was a potential gold mining site and a chance to strike it rich. About two miles south of Granite, Clear Creek empties into the Arkansas River. Although prospecting took place in this area as early as 1867 when the gravel bar reaching out into the Arkansas was found to be rich in placer gold, the real activity didn't take off until 1879 when the canyon exploded with mines everywhere. A report from that time relates: "The Free Republic inewas the first location made in this district, having been discovered in July, 1879. A tunnel has been run 85 feet, showing 3 feet of mineral in the breast, galena and copper, assays
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of ...
ranging from 10 to 131 ounces. For a distance of 49 feet the tunnel has been running through a horse block of rock interrupting a vein and containing no minerals but the pay vein was struck and proved to be nearly 20 feet wide." This early report goes on to list the colorfully named mines of that time: The Mint, Prince Albert, Thunderbolt, Sixteen String Jack, Sunrise, Bluebird, Siamese Chief, Minnehaha, Silver Crop, Cinderella, Birdie Boy. and Terrible.[Scripophily Old Stocks - The Mines of Colorado](_blank)
/ref> A later report related that the four major mines were the Tasmania, the Fortune, the Banker and the Swiss Boy, so it would appear that most mines just did not "pan out". The towns of Beaver City, Vicksburg, Rockdale/Silverdale, Winfield, Hamilton, and others, once hives of activity, have either totally disappeared or remain primarily as ghost towns with only a few remaining buildings.
Winfield was the largest settlement. In 1890 the estimated population is listed as fifteen hundred, but it can be assumed that hundreds more lived in the surrounding area. Winfield included three saloons, three stores, a post office, two hotels, a boarding house, mill, smelter
Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...
, ore concentrator, church, and a school. The last ore was hauled out by stage in 1918. Several restored buildings remain, including the school.
Vicksburg was founded in 1867 after prospectors from Leadville camping out in the Clear Creek Canyon lost their burros. The burros had wandered down the creek and when the miners found their pack animals, they discovered gold in the creek bed as well. In its heyday, Vicksburg had a post office, school, blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
, two hotels, two billiard halls, several saloons, a general store, an assay
An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity ...
office, and a livery stable
A livery yard, livery stable or boarding stable, is a stable where horse owners pay a weekly or monthly fee to keep their horses. A livery or boarding yard is not usually a riding school and the horses are not normally for hire (unless on wor ...
. Early miners packed in Balm of Gilead (balsam poplar
''Populus balsamifera'', commonly called balsam poplar, bam, bamtree, eastern balsam-poplar, hackmatack, tacamahac poplar, tacamahaca, is a tree species in the balsam poplar species group in the poplar genus, ''Populus.'' The genus name ''Populus ...
) trees on the backs of burros and planted them to line the street. The early settlers likely used the sticky sap of the trees to make a medicinal salve used for both animals and humans alike. The trees still stand today and are watered by ditches leading from Vicksburg Creek into the town. The ditches were dug on either side of the street to provide a water system; wooden boxes were built in the ditches to keep food cold and provide water to fight fires. A daily stage ran from Vicksburg to Granite; the fare was $1.50.
Located near Vicksburg but dating to the 1930s is the Crescent Moly Mine #100 and Mining Camp. However, the Crescent Moly was not a gold mine but was associated with the molybdenum
Molybdenum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mo (from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'') and atomic number 42. The name derived from Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ores. Molybdenum minerals hav ...
boom and the nearby Climax mine
The Climax mine, located in Climax, Colorado, United States, is a major molybdenum mine in Lake and Summit counties, Colorado. The operations encompass approximately 14,350 acres, consisting primarily of patented mining claims and other fee la ...
phenomenon. Vicksburg, Winfield and the Crescent Moly Mine are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
A mile further down the valley Pine Creek empties into the Arkansas and evidence remains of prospecting and mining in this area as well. The Colorado Historical Society lists the Littlejohn mine camp on the north bank of Pine Creek:
:North bank of Pine Creek, vicinity of Granite
:National Register 12/27/1978, 5CF.138
:Located in the Pine Creek mining district, structures in the complex include a cabin, a burro shed/bunk house, a forge
A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to the ...
, and several related outbuildings. All date from the 1880s and are constructed of hand hewn logs with A and V joints. Low pitch gabled roofs were made of logs, mud, dirt, and grass. Such intact examples of early log mining camps are rare as many were quickly abandoned or replaced with wood frame or masonry structures. Harry Littlejohn, who acquired the property in 1920 and lived and worked there until his death in 1952, is credited with maintaining the integrity of the complex.
Granite Cemetery
The Granite Cemetery, also known as the Cache Creek Cemetery, is located about one and one-half miles west of Granite. The earliest known burial
is said to be that of an unknown 19-year-old male who died of pneumonia in 1860; the first marked burial is dated 1878. The cemetery is still in use.
One of the earliest graves is that of Rufus Lumry, an abolitionist circuit preacher who was returning from an expedition to help miners thought to be starving in the mountains and got caught in driftwood while trying to cross nearby Cache Creek, where he died of hypothermia on June 21, 1862.
Another early grave is that of Pat Casey, a gandy dancer
Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early railroad workers in the United States and Canada, more formally referred to as ''section hands'', who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines.
The British ...
(section crew worder) who was murdered in 1888 when his throat was slit by Niccolo Feminello, also a railroad worker. Feminello was convicted of the murder and became infamous as being the only "legal hanging" to take place in Chaffee
County. Feminello was buried in the Mt Olivet cemetery in Buena Vista after his execution behind the Buena Vista court house.
Several graves contain the remains of the last of the old-time miners that still lived in the hills surrounding Granite. Charles Franklin, born in 1868 in Sweden and immigrated to the U.S.
in 1888; died in 1950. Known locally as "Old Man Franklin", he lived in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor located on the Arkansas River near Clear Creek, just south of Granite. Like the other "last of their breed" that were soon to follow him in death, he was unmarried and lived alone. The following year Frank Churchill, another never-married miner, was found dead in Clear Creek near his cabin; it was some time before his body was discovered.
Dave Jardine, another old miner, lived in a log cabin situated on Pine Creek, south of Granite, till his death in 1953. Jardine always carried a "doodlebug", a pendulum
A pendulum is a device made of a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate i ...
similar to that used for dousing
Dousing is the practice of making something or someone wet by throwing liquid over them, e.g., by pouring water, generally cold, over oneself. A related practice is ice swimming. Some consider cold water dousing to be a form of asceticism.
Col ...
, to tell the future or just for advice. Dave, or "Stinky Dave" as he was called, loved dogs and had five or six strays which he kept in his cabin at night. He had deep chronic venous ulcer
Venous ulcer is defined by the American Venous Forum as "a full-thickness defect of skin, most frequently in the ankle region, that fails to heal spontaneously and is sustained by chronic venous disease, based on venous duplex ultrasound testing ...
s on both ankles that may have been the cause of his bad odor, and may well have been the cause of his death. According to county records, when authorities discovered him he had been eaten by his dogs after he had died alone in his cabin.
Granite today
Little remains of Granite's past. In the 1950s a Colorado couple ran a gold panning tourist attraction they named "Gold Camp", just south of town at the point that Pine Creek runs into the Arkansas. By 1955, the Granite school enrollment had dwindled to only thirteen and the school was closed. The railroad ended service in the 1980s. Chaffee County lists the school and the Denver & Rio Grande railroad building and several other still-standing buildings including a blacksmith-livery, a hotel, and a stage stop as sites of historical interest.
Today this area draws whitewater rafting
Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...
enthusiasts. The rapids were created by a massive glacial flood which spread boulders down the river for over fifty miles. The whitewater area starts in the "Granite Gorge" with class IV rapids and the river rapidly drops to the steepest point at "Pine Creek Rapids", class V.
Situated within the San Isabel National Forest and surrounded by three wilderness areas, Granite is also a popular hiking area. The Mount Massive Wilderness
The Mount Massive Wilderness is a federally designated wilderness area in the Sawatch Range, located in the U.S. state of Colorado. It is operated jointly by the United States Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the San I ...
area lies a few miles north, the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness
The Buffalo Peaks Wilderness is a U.S. Wilderness Area located in San Isabel and Pike National Forests in central Colorado. The wilderness was named after two highly eroded volcanic mountains, East Buffalo Peak and West Buffalo Peak, in the ...
is to the east within the Mosquito Range, and the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness
The Collegiate Peaks Wilderness is a area located in central Colorado between Leadville and Buena Vista to the east and Aspen to the west and Crested Butte to the southwest. Most of the area is in the San Isabel and Gunnison National Fores ...
is to the west within the Sawatch Range.Wilderness.net - Collegiate Peaks Wilderness - General Information
/ref>
The Cache Creek area remains of interest to modern-day prospectors looking for the placer gold that was left behind when mining operations ended in 1911. Cache Creek is managed by the Bureau of Land Management for wildlife habitat, wetlands, open space, and small-scale placer mining.
For years only one business remained open, the Granite General Store, however it closed in 2007. The building was originally an 1880s bunk house for railroad workers. Currently there are only eight year-round residents in Granite. Most people, even "locals", pass through Granite unaware of its historical past.
Popular culture
In 1954, 7th grade Granite student Juliann Horvath, a year young for her class because she had started school a year early, won the Chaffee County combined 7th and 8th grade spelling bee
A spelling bee is a competition in which contestants are asked to spell a broad selection of words, usually with a varying degree of difficulty. To compete, contestants must memorize the spellings of words as written in dictionaries, and recite ...
. Juliann was one of only three Granite 7th grade students, and the total school enrollment that year was less than twenty.
Doc Holliday
John Henry Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887), better known as Doc Holliday, was an American dentistry, dentist, gambling, gambler, and gunfighter who was a close friend and associate of Sheriff, lawman Wyatt Earp. Holliday is b ...
, gambler, gunfighter, and dentist of the American Old West and most remembered for his involvement in the 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral pitted lawmen against members of a loosely organized group of cattle rustlers and horse thieves called the Cowboys on October 26, 1881. While lasting less than a minute, the gunfight has been the subject of ...
, left Arizona by rail and then took the Leadville stage from Buena Vista, north through Granite, and on to Leadville in 1882.
See also
*Chaffee County, Colorado
Chaffee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 19,476. The county seat is Salida, Colorado, Salida.
History
Chaffee County has a confusing origin. Between ...
* History of Lake County, Colorado
References
External links
Cultural, Historical and Archeological Resources
Granite mining history
at Western Mining History
''Chaffee County Times'' (local newspaper)
Ghost towns near Granite
Rock Talk
Geology
Early history of the area
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Chaffee County, Colorado
Unincorporated communities in Colorado
Former county seats in Colorado